


and mine isn't making a sound

by misgivings (orphan_account)



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Mental Breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-07
Updated: 2012-06-07
Packaged: 2017-11-07 04:53:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/427091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/misgivings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is an eerily stormy September night, and they remember nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and mine isn't making a sound

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a high school AU for fun, but as it turns out it's impossible for me to write anything truly lighthearted about these two.
> 
> Quick thank you to my friend Moirrey for betaing this, it was great help!

Loki sighs, arms crossed over his chest as he watches his brother extend his right arm back, football in hand, and hurtle it (perfect spiral, oh, big surprise) towards the tire they’ve got set up in front of the tree in their backyard.

“It’s getting cold,” he says, conversationally.

Thor doesn’t even look at him, just scoffs. “Since when has that ever bothered you?”

“It never has and it never will,” Loki replies, coming to stand next to Thor. “Now, _you_ , on the other hand…”

Thor goes to elbow him in the side, but Loki is far too quick, leaning out of the way with a sharp burst of laughter that only grows when his brother nearly tackles him to the ground, grinning.

“This is stupid,” he remarks, mildly, letting his head fall back on the grass and looking up at the stars. “You’re stupid.”

“And so are you, in a different way,” Thor offers, along with his hand after dusting off his jeans and standing up.

Loki takes it.

It is an eerily stormy September night, and they remember nothing.

.

It is always Loki who sits in the passenger seat of the car. Thor insists that he is the better driver, but one has to wonder if that’s true, as he turns back towards whoever is getting a ride with them and talks boisterously, without paying much attention to the road. Every so often the blonde will turn to his brother and say something, softer than he usually does, which earns him either a smile or some snarky words for his trouble.

Loki finishes homework on the way to school, and Fandral will lean over the back of his seat and whine that it isn’t fair, how Loki can do that and still get such good grades.

“A person is allotted only a certain amount of talent,” Loki says one morning, not even looking up from his math, “and it would seem that none of yours goes into your studies.”

“You can’t be saying such things at seven in the morning,” Sif says from the backseat, “none of his talent goes into rising early, either.”

“I resent that!” Fandral cries, indignantly. “I rise when I mean to, and no earlier.”

Loki just snorts, softly, and, though he can feel his eyes upon him, does not look to Thor.

.

Sitting on the bleachers by himself, Loki tries to pretend he is even vaguely interested in his brother’s football game.

It isn’t easy.

There just isn’t anything he finds appealing about the game. He respects the amount of work that goes into it all, and will freely admit that it is not a thing he can do, just as addition is a thing that Thor cannot do.

Alright, that’s a bit unfair, Thor is capable of simple equations. It’s when letters become involved that he gets confused.

Loki is almost smiling to himself at the thought when a girl moves closer to him on the bleachers. She has short red hair and a serious face. He wonders what questions he will have to field this time. Perhaps she will want to know Thor’s favorite food.

(“Every food,” he will answer, without hesitation.)

But when she looks at him he sees that she is a woman and not a girl, so not one of their fellow students.

“You’re Loki Odinson, aren’t you?” she says, loudly, but only so that she can be heard over the roaring home crowd as the other team takes seven yards.

“I am,” he says slowly. He thinks it unwise to lie about something so simple.

She stares at him just long enough for him to begin to feel uncomfortable. He opens his mouth to say something, ask for her name, perhaps, but she shakes her head and closes her eyes tight.

“Sorry, I just–thought you looked familiar, and then the name occured to me.” Loki nods, so slight that he might not have moved at all. “I'm not even sure how I knew that, have we met–”

“If we have, it was of no consequence,” he cuts her off with as disarming a smile as he can manage.

She doesn't smile in return and says nothing more. By halftime she is gone.

.

He and Thor share a mandatory Government class before lunch that Thor failed the year before, not due to a lack of intelligence but because of disinterest in anything in the subject not involving the military.

Thor falls asleep more often than not, chin in the palm of his hand and softly snoring. Loki will wake him up by tapping him on the shoulder blade with a pen twice, a sign that he should blink a few times and ask their teacher to repeat her question.

At lunch Thor will brashly complain about the class while Loki largely ignores him in favor of sneaking off to the library to read in a relatively quiet environment.

Later at night, when Loki is reading articles online, or pretending to, anyway, Thor will come into his room and collapse on his bed, begging for help on some worksheet or another. Loki always obliges, though not without some small amount of reprimanding.

“So the three branches are like branches of a large tree?” Thor asks on a November midnight, face screwed up in concentration.

“It wouldn’t be wrong to say so, I suppose,” Loki shrugs.

“Hm.”

.

It’s not that Thor is stupid, not really.

Loki may say it often enough, but he doesn’t think it so often as it seems.

His brother is arrogant and too self-absorbed for his own good, like he thinks himself a god among mortals. _That_ is stupid, but not so much his brother, himself.

They spend their Christmas break visiting relatives up north, Thor cloaked in more layers than seems wise, and Loki in less.

Thor isn’t stupid, but he is a child at times. It is the only explanation why the elder brother spends every night homesick and clinging to the younger on the pull out couch they sleep on for a week.

“Dearest brother,” Loki says, sarcasm so heavy that even Thor, who’s usually blind to that type of thing, scoffs, “might you consider not suffocating me tonight?”

“No, I do not think so.” Thor shifts so that his horribly large left bicep is far too close to Loki’s mouth.

“I retract that ‘dearest,’” Loki murmurs, with no malice.

“If I am not so by your own admission, than I am at least that by default,” Thor points out.

Loki grimaces, and gives up.

No, Thor is not stupid by any means.

.

January mornings are met with no amount of joy from Thor, but Loki revels in them, dark and freezing cold. Thor takes his pair of gloves and wears two while he tries to get his car’s engine running.

“That’s what you get for not spending more money,” Loki chides, singsong, deftly moving to the left to dodge the punch Thor throws out, halfheartedly.

“If you are so smart about this sort of thing, then why don’t I see _you_ with a car?” Thor asks, and he grins when Loki only purses his lips. “Now go turn the key.”

Loki does and engine roars to life, almost too loud for a moment, before settling into a quiet rumble. Still worrying, but at least _working_.

“Perhaps I will just have you drive me everywhere,” Loki says as they get into the car, pulling a notebook from his backpack and flipping through the pages. “Even after you and I graduate, I mean. You would be gainfully employed as my chauffeur.”

“Oh, yes, you would like that, wouldn’t you?” Thor laughs, rubbing his hands together before backing the car down their driveway.

“I think I would,” Loki says, almost absentmindedly as he starts conjugating French verbs under his breath.

“Honestly I can’t say I would mind, if I wasn’t going away come summer,” his brother says after a few moments of travel. Loki freezes at that, and knows that Thor glances at him, to gauge his reaction.

He holds tight onto the pen in his hand and looks determinedly down at the page in front of him.

“True enough,” he murmurs, just as they’re pulling up to Sif’s house.

It is the first time that he can remember where he turns in unfinished homework.

His grade does not hurt for it, but his heart does.

.

Thor knows it is truly spring when Loki begins to mope about the house.

The warming temperatures, the sun bright in the sky with minimal cloud coverage, all of it makes him visibly wilt, his mouth settling into a seeming permanent frown. He slinks, catlike, in and out of rooms, doing his best not to be noticed, and spends most of his time either by an open window, in front of an electric fan, or in the cool basement.

Thor spends his time outdoors, and frequently tries to get his brother to join him with promises of excitement and company, two things which he should know by now are far more likely to deter Loki from a path than to start him on it.

It is only when the air smells of rain, electricity crackling in the sky, that they end up together.

Thor looking far too eager, and nearly grinning at every rumble of thunder. Loki sinking slowly down on the couch and reading the same sentence in his book over and over again, unable to concentrate as a storm rages.

They barely talk, just: “Move, would you,” and “Make me.”

It’s quiet, and Loki knows, by now, that Thor does not mind that he inches closer with every resounding boom of thunder. It is a miracle that he hardly remarks upon the surprising fear at all.

Sometimes he will turn a page in his book, and glance at his brother to find that he has fallen asleep, draped across the arm of the couch, and he will let himself stare, but it is the only time he does so.

.

It is nearing May, and–

.

“How do I look?” asks Thor, smile brilliant on his face.

Loki hums, noncommittally, shrugging slight–

“But don’t you th–

His hand touches Loki’s face for a moment so fleet–

.

Thor is gone, but–

.

Loki sighs, arms crossed over his chest as he watches his brother extend his right arm back, football in hand, and hurtle it (perfect spiral, oh, big surprise) towards the tire they’ve got set up in front of the tree in their backyard.

He inclines his head up towards the sky and thinks to himself that it is getting colder by the day.

It is an eerily stormy September night, and they remember nothing.

.

Turning his head sideways, Loki says, “I do not see it.”

“Look closer, it’s there,” Thor assures him.

They stand shoulder to shoulder in front of one of the display windows in the main hallway of their high school, this one featuring a huge collage of pictures from the last school year.

“There it is,” Loki says, suddenly, eyebrows raising. “Is that–you gave them that picture? Really? I didn't even know you were taking that one.”

“I thought it was a good choice,” Thor says, smiling brightly, “unless you’d like to take another now?” He holds his hands up in front of Loki’s face, mocking the shape of a camera. “You are quite photogenic, I am sure it will be no problem at all, brother.”

“Oh, be quiet,” Loki grumbles, turning on his heel and beginning to walk away.

“Just one picture!” Thor cries, sounding more amused than distressed as he runs after him. “You don’t even have to smile!”

.

It’s Thor’s idea to hand out candy for Halloween, instead of going to one of the numerous parties they (well, Loki by association only) have been invited to.

Altogether, Loki thinks, it’s not a bad compromise. Thor dresses in more layers than seems strictly necessary and Loki sits beside him, book in hand, though he doesn’t end up reading much of it.

Instead, they spend much of the night with the front door open, Thor trying to get his brother to jump out and scare kids, and Loki steadfastly refusing, on the grounds that Thor’s sorry excuse for a beard is terrifying enough.

“I thought it was coming along nicely,” Thor pouts, and Loki turns away so he doesn’t have the satisfaction of seeing his smile. It’s really not such a bad beard, it just looks a bit silly on a seventeen year old, is all.

They get their third kid dressed up as Iron Man when Thor says, stealing candy from their supply, “What do you think of him?”

“Stop that.” Loki hits his hand away the bowl, though, of course, Thor manages to get a pack of Skittles without much trouble. “Who do you mean?”

“You know, the metal man,” says Thor, before tipping the small bag into his mouth, eating half the candy easily. “Tony Stark.”

“Well, he’s a bit of an idiot, isn’t he?” Loki sighs and sifts around in the bowl for something sour. It really was a mistake to let Thor do the shopping for this. “I mean hasn’t he ever read a comic? Just, ah–” he finds a recluse sour ball at the bottom of the bowl “–telling everyone his identity like that, very stupid if you ask me, which you did.”

Thor seems to consider this for a second, staring out past their porch towards where a group of kids are running down the street, bags full to bursting behind them.

“I bought an entire bag of sour balls,” he says, finally, “I don’t know how that one got in there, I meant to surprise you with them.”

Loki clicks his tongue on the top of his mouth, smirks slightly. “It’s the gesture that counts, is it not?”

From far away the sound of two brothers talking is that of glossed over words and light laughter, and the words don’t matter much at all.

.

Thor tosses an apple into the air, and for one spectacular moment it almost seems as if it will stay there forever, rotating slowly, but it falls back into his palm quickly and heavily, and Loki looks back to his homework with the peculiar thought that he ought to have made that apple disappear.

It would have been quite a good trick, he thinks, fleetingly.

.

Sif is leaning between the two front seats and trying to find a good radio station. “Is there nothing on?” she complains, skipping past two talk stations and a crooning country song.

“It might be better to not listen to anything at all,” Fandral suggests from the back, sounding hopeful.

“And listen to your tall tales all the way to the mall?” Sif says, sounding horrified, “I think _not_.”

Batting her hand out of the way, Loki spins the radio dial nimbly between his fingers before it lands on a station playing agreeable music, just soft lyrics and guitar chords, nothing more. 

Thor smiles at him amiably, and even Sif makes a noise of contentment, settling back. Fandral sighs heavily, but Loki just looks out the window and enjoys the relative quiet.

They spend the day in the nearest city, Sif dragging him along when he’s the only one who doesn’t protest to window shopping. All of them gathering around lunch and laughing inside, with red faces and cold hands warming over food.

Snow falls late in the evening with Fandral and Sif in the backseat fast asleep.

Loki is awake yet, and Thor is blinking blearily at the road ahead.

“How much snowfall do you expect we’ll get?” he asks, tiredly, one hand tapping out an arrhythmical beat on the steering wheel.

“Enough so that you might be buried if you fell asleep on the lawn,” Loki deadpans, sniffing as disdainfully as he can.

“That was just the one time!” Thor hisses, but he’s fighting to frown. “And I will have you know it was summer, and I hardly froze to death.” Loki shrugs at that, but barely. “You are insufferable, do you know this?”

Loki smiles.

He does.

.

Loki sits on the edge of forever, his side bruised, but no worse than his ego. He wants to scream, yell angrily, but instead he sits still, feels his eyes burn anew with hot tears, chooses quiet fury over loud anguish. He has no idea how long he’s been here. Minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, even years, he has no idea. He hears noises sometimes, but can never be sure if they aren't merely echoes of his own dry sobs.

Then, one day (year, minute), there comes the unmistakable sound of soft laughter. He has not laughed in all the time that he has been here.

Turning, he says, “Who–

.

There is a can pushed into his hand, cold to the touch, but still uncomfortable, and Loki frowns at it, not bothering to hide his dislike.

“You do not wish to drink with us?” Thor pouts, though it’s hard to see in the dim lights, Loki knows the way he moves his head to the side, like a dog, the way his forehead wrinkles, slight in its concern. Every inch of him, Loki knows it all.

It is distressing, truth be told.

With a long-suffering sigh he opens the can and takes a sip. It’s not bad tasting, truly, it’s just that he can think of other things he’d rather be doing than sitting in the basement of someone’s house–especially someone who probably only knows him because of his brother–having to yell to be heard over the pounding bass of something that may or may not be music.

Thor is smiling now, big and happy, of course he is, with his fingers around the neck of a beer bottle, he looks far too at home in the atmosphere. It almost causes Loki worry.

It takes him a long moment to realize there is a girl talking to him, and when he does he looks hurriedly over to Thor, which is more a matter of habit than anything. But all Thor does is raise his eyebrows and pointedly turn away.

So much for that.

The girl is pretty, and hardly as stupid as he had expected her to be, as it turns out that she’s in his Physics class.

The problem, as it always seems to be, is that he simply isn’t interested. She’s nice enough, and a good conversationalist at that, and he appreciates her mentioning that they should work on the upcoming semester project together, but there is nothing more to it than that.

He wants there to be, in some desperate way, but there simply is not.

The smile he gives her when she says she supposes she’ll see him on Monday in class is genuine, but hers falters.

Sometimes he wonders what is wrong with him.

.

Their town is beginning to thaw out, grass visible in patches and the sun penetrating cloud cover more than once a day.

It is not much, but it is enough to bring out mentions of going to the beach and of laying in the sun. Loki shudders at the very thought, but keeps his thoughts to himself for as long as he can manage.

Naturally, this means he lasts until the end of the school day when he and Thor are walking through the school parking lot.

“See?” he says, holding his arm up, hardly caring that he nearly knocks into a girl walking the opposite way. “This is what I detest.”

Thor, turning around from giving a glowing apology to the girl Loki had nearly run into, says, “I don’t see anything.”

“Exactly,” Loki hisses, bringing his arm close to his chest now. “It’s already too warm out for me to wear long sleeves. You know how I cannot stand this weather, and it’s only going to get worse as the months go on.”

“Ah, and as I say every time summer nears,” Thor says, face bright and almost unbearable mirthful, keys out now and the lights on the back of his car flashing from fifty feet away to signal that it's unlocked, “now you know how _I_ felt all winter.”

.

Loki weighs two books against one another in the quiet of the library. He’s read the one in his right hand more times than he cares to count, while the one in his left hand is worn, yet new to him. It all depends on if he wants to learn some new spells, or perfect the ones he already knows.

There’s a loud wolf whistle from the other end of the room and Loki’s head turns fast to see his brother grinning from ear to ear, heavily armored and looking the way he always does when he is about to ask for some grand favor or another that Loki will give into if only so that Thor doesn’t get himself killed through sheer stupidity.

Loki sighs and puts both the books back–

“I’m almost done,” he says, looking between two books.

“That’s fine,” Thor says, tipping back one of the books on the shelf, like he’s actually interested in the content. “I was thinking about getting Thai for dinner, if you wanted. It’s been far too long since we last had it.”

Loki watches Thor out of the corner of his eye, his brother’s fingers tapping against the spines of books in succession.

“Does this mean you’re apologizing for ruining my Physics notes?” he says, after a long moment, placing one of the books back where he found it and walking away. Thor sputters behind him.

“It was an accident,” Thor says, voice much too loud, “as I’ve said more times than either you or I care to count. It’s not as if I set out to spill coffee all over them.” He catches the sleeve of Loki’s jacket in the middle of the aisle, his face looking like a lost child’s. “I really am sorry, brother.”

Lips pursed together, Loki considers Thor for a moment longer than he rightfully should before pulling his arm away.

“Thai is fine,” he murmurs, “but _you’re_ paying.” 

He turns fast on his heel, but not so fast that he misses the way Thor’s eyes light up.

.

Cleaning out his locker, Loki throws things to the side as he sees fit. Half-used notebooks and broken pencils–

“I thought you would be using your spells,” Thor says, eyebrows raised and voice lighthearted.

“Using spells to do everything is a good way to make sure that they lose their importance,” Loki reasons, pushing things around his desk until he feels that everything is in its place. “Not all of us wish to use our talents at every opportunity, you know.”

–two fingers to his temple where it feels like someone has struck him, his head clouded and world off-balance.

No one around him seems to have noticed anything amiss, all of them talking to their friends and getting rid of things that seemed far more important at the beginning of the year. Loki feels troubled, is troubled, but does his best not to look it, deciding worrying over this occurrence is better left for later on.

.

He doesn’t think of it again for nearly a week. Not until he’s leaning in the doorway of his brother’s room, watching Thor scramble about for things he doesn’t need but is afraid that he will.

Loki smiles, says softly, “Do you think–

“I never wanted the throne,” he spits, words ugly, and Thor’s hurt face uglier still–

And he is falling, so slowly that it is hard to tell that he is falling at all. The space around him so vast and endless that it is some time before he realizes that he has come to a stop–

Hand against glass, curled into a fist, he snarls–

“How do I look?” asks Thor, smile brilliant on his face.

_Radiant_ , thinks Lo–

.

–ki sighs, arms crossed over his chest as he watches his brother extend his right arm back, football in hand, and hurtle it (perfect spiral, oh, big surprise) towards the tire they’ve got set up in front of the tree in their backyard.

Pulling his jacket tighter around him, Loki shivers without meaning to and gets a pointed look from Thor, one he wouldn’t allow from anyone else.

It is an eerily stormy September night, and they remember nothing.

.

Sif sits next to him in the lunchroom, clearing her throat so that he looks up from his homework (neat little equations printed on college ruled paper) and nearly gets a mouthful of her golden hair. She laughs at that, loud and raucous as always, and he scowls.

“What is it?” he asks, temper short and patience gone.

“It wouldn’t kill you to step away from the edge you’re always on, you know,” she says, nudging his arm with hers. He keeps his gaze focused on his paper, though his pencil doesn’t move. “Oh, come now. How has your day been?”

“Spare me these trivialities, at least,” he says, frowning at her. “I know you care nothing for how my day has been. Ask of me what you will, and I will answer if I find the question worthy of my time.”

She huffs and a stray piece of her hair flutters upwards from the force of it, but doesn’t argue.

“Is Thor sick?” she asks–

having left all pretense behind.

“Yes,” he replies, running a finger idly underneath a sentence in his book. “My mother is with him, worrying, as is her way. But there is no need for you to do the same. He is fine, truthfully. It is nothing that cannot be cured by a few days of rest and a bit of healing magicks.”

Sif sighs in–

relief, looking lighter already. She pushes away from the table and says, “You know, maybe I wouldn’t have asked, but do know that I have no reason to hope that your day would be anything other than favorable.” She turns swiftly and Loki pretends not to notice the way her black as night hair turns with her. 

.

Loki is running fast as he can, cheeks red and his breath coming out in little puffs of visible air. He can hear laughter behind him and that only spurs him on, though his chest is already hurting from exertion.

He ducks behind a large tree, one that he and Thor had always wanted to build a tree house on top of, but–

“No, Loki,” says Odin All-father, _his_ father once and never all at the same time.

–they never got around to it. He hopes, stupidly, that Thor will not remember the tree, one of many in the expanse of woods behind their home, but of course he does, swinging around the trunk with a loud yell of joy and whipping snow at his younger brother with abandon.

It stings, and he falls to the ground trying to get away, but laughter bursts out of him, regardless, and together–

His armor cracks away and his skin turns...blue. It turns _blue_ as the Jotun’s in front of him, and he feels his eyes grow wide, unbidden, and he is so cold.

–they lay in the snow, clothes getting soaked through. It feels, for a moment, like they are children–

“Kings,” says Thor, eyes shining.

“We cannot both be the king,” Loki says, always the more sullen one.

“I will find a way so that we can be,” Thor decides, and Loki, so foolish despite all of his wisdom, believes him.

–again.

Thor’s hand finds his despite how dark it is outside, and for a moment it is just the two of them, fingers intertwined and stars up above, and then it is nothing.

Nothing but a dull pain, a darkness, a feeling of hunger not for food but for companionship, and a dry sob that stays heavy beneath his breastbone–

“I only ever wanted to be your equal.”

.

Loki steals away one night, though it is hardly a thing he needs to do. The power of the staff he now holds does not wane over distance. True enough, he prefers to stay near the wards he has procured, but there are some things he has to do alone, things he needs no help for and wants no help for.

Things he does not want to stick in the minds of those he lords over now, not because he is scared, but because one never puts a weapon into the hand of his enemy, unless one wishes to die.

Loki does not wish to die.

He winds himself through whispers and words, unseen as he wishes to be, moving through brick and mortar like so much air until he finds a place that suits his needs.

In a house where two brothers live he is the shadows from the flickering lights that hang from the ceiling of the room they feast in. He is the darkness on the side of one of their faces–the younger one, he determines quickly. And then he is an intrusion into the boy’s mind, a feat he can only achieve against such an unguarded mortal mind.

It takes him but a moment to absorb years of knowledge, how these two live and have lived and hope to live in the years coming, how they care for each other and how they fight as all brothers do. He comes to know of Midgardian ways, their ways of learning and fighting, of courting and conspiring and athleticism.

(Not of parents, not of things he deems unimportant.)

He entered the boy’s mind as the boy drew a breath in and he leaves it before another breath escapes the boy’s lips.

He is back in the company of his blue-eyed consorts before they even realize that he was gone. He keeps the memories of a life not his own stowed in the back of his mind, not even completely sure himself as to why he stole a look at them.

The knowledge may help him in the future, when he is the ruler of people who live like those brothers do. Over people so weak as to love one another so much that they would die rather than see the other harmed.

He tells the archer and the scientist and all the other men to work well into the night, and they do not argue with him. None of them look down on him or even sideways at one another, in the way people sometimes do when they question their leader.

No one questions him, and no one ever will, for he will not allow such a thing.

He closes his eyes and does not think of the person whom he holds most dear in his heart, for he would be a fool to hope that the sentiment is returned.

.

The archer says only two words, “It’s ready,” and Loki smirks, the only kind of smile that has ever looked right on him–

There are talks of attacks on New York City, strange attacks. Terrorist attacks, a siege of war, alien worlds advancing, Loki does not know which it is, he only knows that it’s dangerous, and that Thor must not go there.

“I know you have been planning this for years, but things have changed,” he says, and the words feel foreign on his tongue, heavy like honey, but hardly as sweet. It all feels this way, the house they live in, the school they attend, the life they are living. He is not sure how much longer he can play at being Norðri and Suðri, Austri and Vestri, one man holding up the world around him.

Thor is a broken memory, shifting between two forms, neither looking happy with him.

“The changes only mean that my presence is needed all the more,” his brother intones, face twitching and bones backwards. “I will be leaving, as I ever am, at the beginning of the summer.”

“No, you can’t,” Loki says, shaking his head, “it is a foolish idea, your favorite kind of idea, but the very worst kind all the same. You cannot go, I will not allow it.”

There is a sudden movement, and everything around them becomes golden and solemn and smells like the place Loki once called home, such a long time ago.

“But I must,” Thor replies, quietly, like he’s talking to an animal, a feral one that will attack if he raises his voice. “I must go, so that I can stop you.”

The entire room drops out from underneath them, Loki’s mouth goes dry, and Thor (his not-brother, his confidant, the golden son with all the powers allowed to the one who will someday, rightfully or not, be king) is gone.

He is gone but, Loki thinks, leaning his head back against the hard wall of where he is being kept, hands bound and mouth gagged, he was never really here.

He thinks about it, remembers for half a second how, in another life, they were brothers, and, more than that, friends. He tries to speak of it, forgetting, as always, that he is unable to do so, and it comes out as a whining silence, as the very absence of noise.

Mind far, far away, Loki does not even give a thought to what may be in store for him.

He has already done the worst of it to himself.

.

It–

–September night and–

–th–t _he_ y–

_he_ remembers nothing.


End file.
